As the Coronavirus pandemic affects the way we do business, clear, up-to-date messaging on your Call Center phone system is essential.

The global Coronavirus pandemic is changing the way businesses operate, and many companies are shifting their Call Centers to a remote work environment. And while this should be hailed as the right thing to do, it’s also creating new challenges for companies as they scramble to enable employees to work from home and ensure calls are properly routed and handled.

One of the most powerful tools businesses have to communicate with callers right now is the messaging capabilities built-into Call Center features such as IVR & Call Queue. Using these capabilities in the right way will effectively help to lighten the load for agents, reduce caller frustration, and serve customers faster.

We’re sharing our best guidance and actions you can start doing today on how you should set up your phone messages and system features to be more responsive and helpful to your callers during COVID-19:

During this time, clear, current messaging for your phone system is essential.

Covid-19, or Coronavirus, is impacting businesses and cities across the country in an unprecedented way. Many companies are suddenly faced with temporarily shutting down operations, or at the very least, making changes to working hours and allowing employees to work from home. You may also find it necessary to update protocols to ensure the safety of your staff and patrons, and it’s important that each person affected by these changes receive the message as soon as possible.

Social media, email, and your business website makes it easy to get a message through to your customers at scale, but your phone system still remains a key frontline communication tool. As more cities are encouraging people to stay home, customers, suppliers, and partners may call your business to get quick answers, such as changes to your business hours, instructions on how to get help, where to find the most up-to-date information, new procedures your company is implementing to conduct business or anything else that’s outside normal operations. There’s a strong chance you might experience a higher call volume than normal because customers will have questions they’ve never had to ask before.

Businesses across the country are monitoring the Covid-19 status every day, and as new developments become available, it’s important for businesses to be able to fluidly prepare and adapt to minimize any negative effects on operations.

We’re sharing some practical advice on what you can start doing today to empower your business phone system during the Coronavirus pandemic and create a better customer experience:

VirtualPBX develops a hosted business phone system that joins affordability, 24/7 support, and powerful features like Call  Recording and Conferencing.

Your automated attendant is an invaluable part of your organization. Consider all the tasks it performs for you – day in and day out:

It answers your calls, up-sells your products, and reminds callers about important product features you offer. In the average inbound call tree, it reaches customers through dozens of possible touch points. When you consider that the average consumer spends 13 hours per year on hold, it becomes even clearer that your most dedicated service representative has a lot of time to interact with callers.

If you’re not already endowing your automated attendant with custom greetings, this holiday season is a great time to get started. Let’s take a look at the details of the customer-attendant relationship and the ways greetings can boost sales and customer retention.

Let’s face it, impressions matter. Whatever your industry, prospective customers are constantly sizing you up to get to the core of what you’re really about. And this isn’t exclusive to business interactions. People are constantly making assumptions about one another based on their other characteristics and behaviors. Psychologists call this Implicit Personality Theory, and simply put it means that we assume that people exhibit other traits that are commonly linked to the key characteristics we perceive. For example, if your server at a restaurant rushes you through your order without making an idle chit-chat, you might assume he’s unfriendly or doesn’t particularly enjoy his job. On the other hand, if someone displays a happy disposition you are more likely to assume that they are friendly and warm. 

So what does all of this have to do with your voicemail greeting?

A business’ voicemail greeting is often the first point of contact with a business’ customers. Getting this greeting right can make a business sound professional and trustworthy. A badly-done greeting, on the other hand, can confuse and infuriate customers over the phone.

Adrian Miller, founder of Adrian Miller Sales Training, is today's featured guest blogger at Snap Recordings.  She begins our new series about small business strategies with  tips on how to leave a voicemail message that gets heard and also gets a response!